Optimal time Quadcopter Descent Trajectories Avoiding the Vortex Ring and Autorotation States

TL;DR

This paper develops and tests optimal descent trajectories for small quadcopters that avoid vortex ring and autorotation regions, enabling faster and safer descents through combined modeling, wind tunnel experiments, and real-world flight tests.

Contribution

It introduces a novel velocity constraint model to avoid vortex ring and autorotation regions, and designs optimal descent trajectories for quadcopters based on this model.

Findings

Quadcopters can descend faster while avoiding vortex ring and autorotation regions.

Designed trajectories outperform purely vertical descents in speed.

Flight tests validate the effectiveness of the proposed trajectories.

Abstract

It is wellknown that helicopters descending fast may enter the so called VRS, a region in the velocity space where the blade's lift differs significantly from regular regions. This may lead to instability and therefore this region is avoided, typically by increasing the horizontal speed. This paper researches this phenomenon in the context of small scale quadcopters. The region corresponding to the VRS is identified by combining first principles modeling and wind tunnel experiments. Moreover, we propose that the so called WBS or autorotation region should also be avoided for quadcopters, which is not necessarily the case for helicopters. A model is proposed for the velocity constraints that the quadcopter must meet to avoid these regions. Then, the problem of designing optimal time descend trajectories that avoid the VRS and WBS regions is tackled. Finally, the optimal trajectories are implemented on a quadcopter. The flight tests show that by following the designed trajectories, the quadcopter is able to descend considerably faster than purely vertical trajectories that also avoid the VRS and WBS.